


White Sheeps & Sulky Sheeps

by TheAnderfelsOne



Series: Summer vacation [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous Feelings, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:53:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4551258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAnderfelsOne/pseuds/TheAnderfelsOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders and Carver have some alone time at the beach the morning after the 'kitchen night' ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Sheeps & Sulky Sheeps

The next day, everyone can see the amount of cherries missing from the fridge and all the kernels dumped in the bin. Of course Malcolm Hawke raises surprised eyebrows at the amount of empty bottles of alcohol also dumped there.

Orana has already cleaned the glasses she found in the sink since she wakes up before everyone can notice them too.

Leandra only sighs and refuses to make a scene about it as she pats her husband on the shoulder and mentions for him to take a seat and start eating.

The whole family is seated around the long marble table as the morning’s sun baths the living room in a dazzling summer light.  

All but the elder son. And his boyfriend.

It’s Leandra who breaks the casual silence of clinging silverwares by sighing again. “They must have stayed awake all night again.”

“The booze must have helped,” Carver mutters sullenly to his scrambled eggs.

“It’s holidays! It’s no big deal if they sleep in a little,” Bethany retorts casually from across of him.

“Four bottles of alcohol were emptied if you haven’t noticed. It’s not just a sleep in they’ll be having,” Carver interjects with a scowl.

Bethany just stuffs more waffle in her mouth and huffes with her nose.

“That’s not really acceptable.” Leandra chirps in detachedly, too captivated by creaming her second cup of coffee just the way she likes it. 

Carver takes a passive-aggressive last bite of his breakfast and pushes himself off the table with screech of his chair, “Anyways. See ya, I’m out.”  

“The beach?” his sister asks, looking up.

“Yeah. Got plans with some guys.” Carver says half way out the room.

“Can you wait for me at least! I’m going too!” Bethany pouts.

Carver tosses her a bored glare, “Then hurry up! They’re already there.”

Bethany jumps up and drinks down the rest of her juice in one go before saying “Bye mom, dad.”

“By sweetie.” Malcolm says, pouring himself another cup of black coffee.

“You need something from the city?” Leandra asks.

“Umm… no I’m good.” Bethany declares and kisses Leandra’s cheek rapidly as a farewell.

Carver waits for his sister with an extravagant amount of feet and fingers taping on the banister at the bottom of the stairs. She comes down fifteen minutes later with a made up face and her bikini underneath her top and jean-skirt.

“Geez the boys are totally passed out! I creaked open the door of their bedroom and they look beat even in their sleep.”

Carver just grits his teeth at the word _their_ next to _bedroom_. He just huffs through his nose and whips his head away. “Let’s roll.”

*** 

Amarathine’s beach is already full of people when they arrive at eleven. Even if they’re in the VIP west side with the beach beds, deck chairs and parasols, it’s already plenty full with morning people. Carver has time to meet his friends, swim, shoot the shit at the beach bar before finally lounging on a deck chair with a bottle of beer at two-thirty in the afternoon, when a shadow falls over him.

“Hi, Carver!”

Carver whips his head immediately at the knowing voice, “Oh, Anders,”

“I thought I won’t be able to find you guys in all this crowd,” he says pleasantly while beginning to sprawl his beach towel over the next deck chair.

Carver side-eye him in silence first. Then Anders settles down and start to rummage through what he knows is Garrett’s bag. “Where’s Garrett?”

Anders seems to have grabbed what he’s been looking for which is a sun cream and turns to look over at Carver with a smile, “Oh, yes, he went straight to the water. What about Bethany? Didn’t she leave with you?”

“Mhm. Dunno. Didn’t see her for a while now.”

“Ok,” Anders says and starts  humming some kind of pop song about sunshine and coming up of air and he recognize the romantic song when Anders sings song the lyrics while pulling _two_ freaking books from the bag.

“ _Two hearts are beating together, I’m in love ooh, I’m in love oh! is this forever and ever,_ ” he do a tiny shake of his head in tune with the song, “ _I’m in love oh! Ouh, ouuh!”_

Anders hums softly to himself and Carver squints at him. He looks happy. He _sounds_ happy. Because that _‘ouh’_ is just silly. Fuck. He’s still, but his body is shifting uncomfortably inside - where Anders can’t see it.

Silly-cute.

“Old tune,” he mutters detachedly.

Anders shoots him another unpredictable sunshiny smile, “Yeah, we heard it in the radio when we were having breakfast. Or maybe I should call it brunch,” he chuckles, “It just stuck.”

“You… had quite a party last night, judging by the number of empty bottles found in the kitchen.” He says, again as detachedly and casually and Carver is the epitome of casualness.

A blatant blush appears on the top of the blond man’s cheeks, “Uh yeah… Garrett and I… we stayed a bit late,” he bites in the inside of his cheek as he continues, “Well, I did a margarita.”

So they got wasted. He doesn’t know about his brother but Anders don't seems to be suffering any hangover left-over. He looks well rested. Who’s he kidding, he knows that’s because they must have drunk-fucked till morning probably.

“Yeah we kind of figured,” he replies scoffing and turns away to face the sea ahead of him. There’s a bunch of half naked people hindering the view but it still works for him, “At least you didn’t bust into dad’s favorite cabinet.”

He doesn’t see it at first but he can feel the blushing reddening just from the gasp and the sliver of shaking in Anders’ voice as he replies, “Oh fuck, did your father get mad? We should’ve never do it, I’m really sorry, it’s so disrespectful of me…” and stops there ‘cause he doesn’t know what to add from there and flounders for words silently.    

Carver actually whips his head towards him, “Stop apologizing as if you're alone in it!” He can’t help but snap but he can’t just stand that small voice babbling – taking all the blame.

After all he’s not an asshole. He doesn’t want to shame or embarrass Anders. He’s already infuriatingly modest and timid around his parents and even with the bloody gardener he himself never talked to.

It’s also because he’s ninety percent sure it was Garrett’s idea. Anders would never dare alone. 

“It’s fine, he _was_ disgruntled in the morning, but he won’t bring it up again. He went drinking with his buds so he might even forget about it. Dad in holidays is mostly always in an airily good mood.”

Anders still looks down and rub his temple, “Shit… well, I’m still going to apologize, though I don’t know how…” he sighs.

“No need I’m telling you! Stop fretting about it,” he drops an octave ‘cause he may have just sounded inadvertently harsh. He says more softly, eyes unfocused on a middle aged woman who dropped her hot dog in the sand, “You got wasted in the middle of the night and ate a bowl of cherries, more power to you.”

Anders do a little embarrassed chuckle and tries to avoid eye-contact too obviously.

Carver takes a swirl from his bottle, “After all, it’s not in this house that someone will complain about food missing around.” Then he shoots Anders a mock-snicker, “Especially if mom knows it went in your stomach. She seems hell-bent on fattening you up like a turkey on Satinalia.”

This time Anders’ head lifts up finally and his face brighten up with a new wide, lower lip-biting grin and laughs, “Yeah she’s lovely. Ah Maker, I’d worry more about this bleached skin that doesn’t want to tan one bit.” He sighs in mock-desperation and grabs his sun cream.

Carver sizes him with a sideway gaze and finds it amusing, “It’s the second week here, you don’t tan?” He himself have picked up a nice sun-kissed tan that brought out the blue in his eyes and gave him a cool surfer look with his already defined body. 

“I burn.” Anders says, standing up to stretch his arms high and opening the cap of the bottle. “I mean look at all this whiteness! I stand out like a black sheep in a herd of white! Or maybe I’m the white sheep in this case.”

Carver does look. More openly because Anders is up and too busy furrowing at his own skin genes. Also because he’s standing right behind the sun and it’s difficult to stare at his too golden crown without shades. He peels off his sleeveless shirt and stands in his small swim trunks hanging just beneath his hips. They’re blue with a white waistband and ride far up the thighs.     

Carver has thought Anders’ season was winter. Because the brightened snow reflects on his blond hair and the cold weather bites at his cheeks and leaves a perpetual flush there. He never catch a cold and he just look like a human-burrito in his white immaculate big-assed coat and wooly scarf.

But Carver thinks he finds summer Anders better. Because summer Anders is an outstanding milky white Anders who ends up in the evening with deep pinked cheeks and nose from the blazing sun, sun that looks like it shines right out of the man’s golden hair so much it’s unnaturally bright.

It’s also because summer is the only season where it’s okay to cover only ten percent of your body.

Oh and Anders’ hair fucking _curls_ at the ends after swimming.

“Want some help with that?” he hears himself saying at some point.

Anders looks back at Carver who points at where he’s trying to twist his arm to put some cream on his back.

Anders looks perplexed for a few seconds. Carver can’t begrudge him that, after all he never really tried to interact much with the blond man. Maybe because of his already bumpy relationship with his big brother, or maybe it’s his natural broody personality; _he_ was the perplexed one when Garrett told him he’s bringing Anders with them for the summer.

He was more than perplexed. He dropped the barbecue Crunchip he was holding close to his mouth as his jaw dropped too.

Because _what the hell?_ Anders? With them? Two months in their holiday estate? It's already enough he lives with him all year long, shares the same hall, couch, bathroom, having him sleeping with Garrett, stumbling on them kissing, groping each other like two fucking newlyweds on a cheap cornflakes-breakfast kind of shitty honeymoon.   

And why? Because Carver hates to admit that Anders is too… wholesome, for his stupid half junkie brother.

Okay, too beautiful too. His feelings for his big brother’s boyfriend are still frustrating and confusing, sometimes he forgets all about him for a whole day, goes on dates, kisses, fucks, and sometimes he just needs to return home to be hit with the bitter reality of Anders huddled in a kitty-embroided cotton quilt on the couch, engrossed in some documentary about the fascinating life of some famous musician or a gory gladiator tv show about freedom and political betrayals.

Those times, Carver has this urge where he just wants to… to do something. Cuddle with him - kiss him – tell him how sickening cute he is.

One time, Anders has whipped his head noticing him at the door and asked to join him if he wants to. Carver has wanted to. Fuck, his heart has seemed to never have wanted something so strong at that moment.

So yeah, he did end up weirdly but surprisingly comfortably huddled with an Anders in his kitten onesie that Garrett brought him for his birthday, beneath the absurd kitten quilt for Maker knew how long, watching gladiators trying to kill their way to overthrow the power – thanking the Maker silently it was not a four hours concerto or some animal documentary.      

They shared the pint of the macadamia ice cream, argued about the realism of the kills and that evening, the flat was unbelievably empty. He wondered for a long moment if this was some kind of sign from the Maker for the flat to be empty of the five other residents but of Anders.

But that night, Carver ended up regretting it. It was not a sign. It was a prank. Because all it did was hammer his feelings for the blond man for good and give him the most enjoyable fleeting moments before stealing them away from him the next day.

He thinks about all that while smearing sun cream all over Anders’ back. He stays clinical as he feels the naked flesh for the first time ever. Anders brushes his hair to the side of his shoulder silently and Carver gets the hint. He brings up the other hand and let them travel from the arrow of his spine to the planes of his shoulders – putting an unconscious pressure with his thumbs there – and finally reaching the nape of his neck.

His lips part as his eyes glazes slightly at the sinuous sight of blond locks pushed aside to reveal long lean displayed flesh. His fingers brush it delicately at first, all clinical attitude scattered in the inexistent wind.    

He doesn’t know if Anders notices it or not but he still doesn’t budge aside from a small twitch his shoulders-blades do when Carver reaches that warm, flushed body part.

Perhaps it’s an erogenous place, Carver dares to wonder. He coats-massages it with the sun cream and Carver feels like someone washes his insides in cool waters.

But smearing sun protection on a neck doesn’t take eternity, that’s why it last only a few seconds before he retracts back and wipes the residues of the lotion on the side of his own thighs.

Anders stands to sit back on his deck chair, “Thank you,” he says softly with a smile. He looks cool so Carver relaxes too.

“No prob,” he replies. And then he sees it when Anders puts his Ray-Ban on. The dark hickey on Anders’ side of his neck; there to remind him just to whom that neck belongs to.

And for the second time that day, Carver grits his teeth.


End file.
